As I mentioned in an earlier post, on set things can get tense. It is hard enough to work long hours let alone working long hours with people you don’t really know. This is why it is important to bond with your fellow crew members.

This is likely to happen organically but being conscious of it should help accelerate the process. The quicker you build this relationship, the better.

There are many ways to help this growth along, such as:

Telling jokes (because everyone likes jokes).

Showing respect for the ideas of your fellow crew members.

Sharing meaningful stories.

Eating food together.

Coming up with ‘secret’ handshakes, etc.

This list could likely go on forever.

To give you an example from our set:

Before this project I had never met my boom operator Kelly. Once we found we would be working as a two man team we discussed ways to create a shared identity. Primarily this resulted in a team uniform and a set of calisthenic exercises (Both of these are featured in the short film below). This was incredibly effective for team building because Kelly and I learned a lot and enjoyed every minute of it.